In the circus which is Pakistani cricket, a parlimentary inquiry is being conducted to investigate the cricketers' "lack of commitment to national honour" after their loss to India. Sports gone mad? When politicians start calling their best fast bowler "a pampered and spoiled baby" (Senator Tariq Azeem) you have to wonder, even if that fast bowler is Shoaib Akhtar.
To be frank, I think Pakistan did themselves damn proud in the test and one-day series. The current Indian team would probably rank as that country's best ever, full of established performers at the peak of their game (Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman) and stars just beginning to crest (Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Nehra, Balaji). Meanwhile Pakistan has one champion batsman who seems to be slipping over the crest (Inzamam), one world class bowler (Akhtar) and a whole bunch of inexperienced youngsters.
I can think of earlier Pakistani sides which would have disintergrated in the face of a challenge like that the Indians presented, but this side managed to take both the one-dayers and the test series to the wire. If it should be doing anything (and it shouldn't), the government of Pakistan should be figuring out how to build on the performace, not to demolish the foundations of it.
Wednesday, 2 June 2004
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Very true. Let's just be thankful the Pakistani government has something to temporarily distract it from Kashmir. Although perhaps being distracted from the current secretarian violence is not quite so helpful.
I wonder how Yousuf Youhana is finding life? It must be a little tough to be a high profile Christian in the current climate.
I also wonder if, as a fairly new and (to a large degree) artifically created country, nationalism and national pride are something that the government of Pakistan sees as rather more important than our government in New Zealand does. I imagine they would see a team of Sunnis, Shi-ites and Christians banding together under the green and white flag and being successful at the national obsession as a very valuable political commodity.
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